Satellite television signal receiving units are already known from the book 12-GHz Satellite Reception by Bernhard Liesenkottër, 5th edition, 1994, published by Huthig Buch Verlag, Heidelberg. A community receiving station is described in Section 4.5.2 of this book on pages 104–106 which operates with a central modulation conversion. The television signals taken from the external unit of the satellite receiver station centrally in the receiving site, which can be provided, for example, on the roof of an apartment or multifamily home, are initially demodulated and then converted by remodulation to standard TV channels, i.e., to VHF or UHF signals. These can then be fed to a television set via a home antenna cable and played back on its screen.
A television set with one or more receivers or subscribers is known from EP 0 582 023 A1. The television set and the receivers or subscribers are connected to a cable, antenna and/or a cable network and/or a satellite receiver unit. This unit prepares satellite television programs and converts them to cable. The satellite receiving unit can be remotely controlled via the cable for the receiver or subscriber.
An antenna unit to receive signals of a terrestrial and an orbital transmitter with a satellite tuner arranged in the proximity of the antenna is known from DE 38 31 994 A1. A transcoder to convert the satellite signal to a standard signal and to supply it to the antenna take-off is also disclosed. Tuning of the satellite tuner, the method of operation of the transcoder and tuning of the modulator can be remotely controlled.
An arrangement for direct reception of satellite programs is disclosed in EP 0 288 928 A2. This arrangement has an external receiving station, to which a parapole antenna and a converter are connected. An internal unit is also provided, which accomplishes the functions of amplifier and signal converter. In order to make satellite signals receivable for a normal television set, the amplifier and converter are provided. The apparatus has a number of converters, which convert the converted signal to frequency bands in the UHF or VHF band.
The underlying task of the invention is to show a way how satellite television signals can be played back by means of a television set, for example, television receiver or video recorder in user-friendly fashion.